"I originally heard the set up at a demo in the United States. Immediately I fell in love with it, and when I got home to Canada, I knew it was the right purchase decision for my intent on saturating a different end of the market.
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Carlos Costa

ACS Productions Sound and Lighting Inc.

ACS Productions Sound and Lighting, Inc. of Ontario, Canada recently deployed their new M.LINE compact line array rig for Toronto’s version of worldwide festival of the Lady of Lights, or Senhora de Luz.

Working with local provider 5 Star Productions, the two companies teamed up for the four day event. This was Steve Ferreira of 5 Star Productions first experience with the ACS M.LINE rig he was blown away with the sound quality of the McCauley Sound M.LINE system set up for the event. “We’ve been doing this celebration about 8 years. What’s great is that it’s free to the public and goes on for about four days,” says Steve. “St. Matthews Church throws the event for the parish every year, but this is the first year we decided to use a line array system to reach all in attendance.” “I contacted Carlos at ACS and he helped me put together the right rig for the festival.” He continues… “Our event coordinators were beyond impressed with the results of the show and have confidently booked next years festival with the same set up.”

Carlos set up 5 Star Productions with a total of 18 M.LINE cells for the show. With 9 boxes per side, Steve was working with 14 M90’s and 4 M120’s. “I also supplied Steve a Midas Verona 36 channel console, with a DBX 482 drive rack and Crown 3600’s to power the whole system. It was truly amazing to

see how such a small box could cover an outdoor event so well.”

Liberato “Lee” Correia, Sound Engineer and Event Photographer for ACS, had this to add on the coverage of the outdoor venue, “Everyone seemed to really enjoy the show a lot. The McCauley M.LINE really threw the sound very well and with 9 boxes per side, it really helped the coverage factor.”

Carlos started ACS around the same time Steve and Five Star got started. Being known in the Canadian community as installation gurus, Carlos specifically purchased the M.LINE system for ACS to start taking on a different direction. “I originally heard the set up at a demo in the United States,” reflects Carlos. “Immediately I fell in love with it, and when I got home to Canada, I knew it was the right purchase decision for my intent on saturating a different end of the market.”

Part of the decision to purchase the M.LINE Array in particular was the amount of time it takes to set up. “Not only does it sound phenomenal, but you can’t beat the price, you can’t beat the rigging and you definitely can’t beat the quality for the price, period. To fly the whole array for this event, took about 15 minutes as soon as the stage was set up. I can’t do that with any other rig. It was absolutely mind blowing on how little time was spent in getting this ready for the

show,” said Carlos.

“Since I had never used McCauley Sound full speaker systems before, I was really pleased with the performance of the box,” stated Lee. “I always knew that McCauley made fantastic drivers, but it was really great to hear the whole set up in action. On top of that, as a sound engineer, I can really appreciate the amount of time it takes to fly the hardware. The efficiency of using the Line Array Calculator to get set up is great. All you have to do is get the holes lined up and in a matter of minutes you have flown the whole array.”

“What really impressed me,” remembers Steve “was when the main headliner on Saturday night played traditional Portuguese guitar. It just sounded so crisp, so clean and so warm that I couldn’t believe my ears. Portuguese guitar is hard to mix clearly indoors; it was truly incredible to hear it so clearly at an outdoor event. On top of that, I mixed the whole event, all four days. Regular people would come up just to tell me that it was the best year for the festival. The sound quality and the stage set up were much better than years past. Not only was the public input heard, but the performers as well.”

Performers from all over the community and even as far as Brazil came to participate in the Senhora da Luz of Toronto

this year. “I got some good feedback from performers during the sound check,” says Carlos, “Even the local papers knew what I was going to use to upgrade the show’s quality this year. The “wow” factor for me was when I realized I was using 8in drivers in the McCauley M.LINE. They were performing like they were 12’s with the response down to 60 Hz and it was as clear as day. I still can’t get over the fact that they were only 8’s! There’s not an 8 inch driver on the market that I feel can perform like the McCauley Sound M.LINE. And someone really ought to get an award for the rigging design. I love the rigging!”

Since the Lady of Lights festival, Lee has gotten some contact from surrounding production companies regarding the system. “It’s interesting, other people in the industry have contacted us to talk about how well the concert was dialed in and how great all the gigs have sounded since we’ve been using this line array system for production. After the Lady of Lights, the M.LINE has really started generating a lot of interest.”

With the success of the system’s performance at the Lady of Lights Festival, Carlos has begun looking into other product lines provided by McCauley Sound. “Since we already have the drop on the installation market, we have plans to start using the iDESIGN series up here. They don’t know what they’re in for, but it’s going to be great!”